ESCAPED THE COPS

Cortland County resident Dr. Ellis M. Santee.

Cortland Evening Standard, Tuesday, January 29, 1895.

ESCAPED THE COPS.

Eight Miles an Hour the Limit of Speed in New York.

   Since the return of the wheel men from New York who had been down to attend the International cycle show a story has leaked out of how Dr. Santee and Mr. W. H. Brown escaped the "coppers" when they went out riding one day on the motor tandem. They were out showing off the wheel on Fourth-ave. one day and were riding back and forth for six or eight blocks while a great crowd of wheelmen were looking on. They had stationed a man at each cross street to give them warning of [horse] teams so they could slow up if necessary.

   There is a regulation in New York that wheelmen must not ride faster than eight miles an hour. A policeman pulled out his watch and found them going upwards of forty miles an hour and calling two assistants resolved to run them in. Mr. Pennington saw the watch and the call for assistance and suspecting the cause hurried down the street to give them warning. When they realized what it meant they were too near the officers to turn into a cross street and escape. The officers were coming at them in the middle of the street waving their clubs to have them stop.

   Instead of stopping they turned on more electricity and went past the officers flying. The officers did not dare to stand in the way of such a machine. When they had passed the officers they slowed up, ran around to the rear entrance of Madison Square Garden, put their wheel in the booth and disappeared in the crowd. The officers were soon over there looking for the riders, but could not find them.

Bob Fitzsimmons.

FITZSIMMONS IN SYRACUSE.

He Pleads Not Guilty to the Charge of Manslaughter.

   SYRACUSE, Jan. 29.—Robert Fitzsimmons accompanied by his attorney, E. M. Friend of New York, reached this city and appeared before Justice Vann in the court of oyer and terminer to answer to a charge of manslaughter for killing Con Riordan. He pleaded not guilty and was held in $10,000 bail. Charles Shattuck and Yank Sullivan, two local sporting men, signing his bail bond.

   The case will probably not be tried until the March term of court. Meanwhile his attorney will fight for dismissal of the indictment.

   Fitzsimmons will remain in Syracuse until Thursday, and then will rejoin his theatrical company at St. Louis. He is very sore on Captain Glori, his manager, for announcing that he had had trouble with him, but says he will be forced to stay under Glori's management, as the latter has a two years' contract with him.

THREE INSANE WOMEN.

All are Committed to the Binghamton Asylum.

   Three more lunacy cases have been filed in the [Cortland] county clerk's office.

   Mary Jane Johnson of this village was examined by Drs. E. W. McBirney of Willet and Jerome Angel of Cortland and was declared insane. She is 47 years of age. The attack began suddenly Jan. 1, 1895. She was alternately excitable and depressed. She was laboring under the delusion that her husband had given her chloroform, that her son and his wife were preparing to burn her alive, that her family were plotting to kill her as she was a trouble to them and they wanted her out of the way.

   Almeda Davis of McGrawville was examined Jan. 21, by Drs. P. M. Neary and H. C. Hendrick. Her attack was gradual. She is 69 years of age, violent, dangerous and excitable and has threatened to kill her sister with whom she is living. She has attacked her with a stove handle and sticks of wood at times, wounding her upon the head. Her manner was wild and excited, when examined by the physicians. Heredity is the supposed predisposing cause, while the exciting cause is unknown.

   The third unfortunate is also a woman, Ruie Sperry. She has been an inmate of the county almshouse for ten or twelve years and is 85 years of age.  The present attack began about seventeen years ago and she has been alternately violent, excited and depressed. Doctors Jerome Angel and P. M. Neary made an examination yesterday morning. She believed that her son, who is dead, was very ill and needed her attendance, that she can hear him talking and she holds imaginary conversations with him and yet she says she does not know whether he is living or dead. She alleges that she went to the almshouse as a domestic at two dollars a week and that they owe her for ten years' work and that she must go to a United States bank at Auburn to secure her money.

   The three women have been committed to the Binghamton hospital for the insane.

PAGE TWO—EDITORIALS.

Alfred Dolge on the Situation.

   In his address to his workmen at their annual reunion at Dolgeville last Saturday, Alfred Dolge gave utterance to the following which commends itself to the careful consideration of every one who is interested in the prosperity of the country:

   "When I addressed you at our last reunion, our factories were closed, and the prospects for 1894 were discouraging.

   "The predictions made by the defenders of the principle of protection during the campaign of 1892, as to the suffering which would follow such a radical change of our economic policy, which the free-traders had forced into the platform of the Democratic party, were very tame pictures to what the country at large has experienced since the inauguration of this policy. It is for this reason that our 26th annual reunion will not be as joyful as all of those held previous to 1893.

   "It is not pleasant to review the year 1894 from a business standpoint. It has been unsatisfactory to every business man in America and disastrous to many.

   "We were enabled to start our factories in February, and have managed to keep them steadily going ever since. But with the rest of the business community we were trembling for fear that something might happen, which would compel us to close them again.

   "Immediately after the election on the 6th of November, business started up most surprisingly. The sudden demand for goods came so unexpectedly that we had to run our mills day and night for the last months of the year to fill pressing orders.

   "This sudden revival of business can be easily explained. The change in our tariff laws meant a lowering of all values, and ever since the change was threatened by the election of 1892, every prudent business man studied how to keep his stock at the lowest possible quantity, in order to make the inevitable loss as light as possible, hence the scarcity of goods. Although the effects of the new tariff have been somewhat discounted by large reductions in wages, I fear that we have not seen the end of the tribulations and misery which this unwise legislation has brought upon the country at large.

   "It is queer statesmanship to discard a policy which proved productive of general prosperity, and to substitute one which was sure to produce stagnation, misery and ruin.

   "Instead of defraying the expenses of the government from duties levied upon manufactured goods sent here from foreign countries, our government is compelled to borrow money, to increase the national debt continually, simply for the purpose of enabling the foreign manufacturer to sell his products in our market.

   "The grim humor of this situation is, that foreigners finally buy our government bonds with the money which they make in our market, and we have thus the privilege of continually paying interest on money which we might have earned ourselves but for this tariff legislation through which your wages have been reduced.

   "It may interest you to learn that since the enactment of the free wool tariff, only five months ago, we have bought nearly $150,000 worth of foreign wools. The money for this wool was mostly sent to Africa and Australia.

  "Under the tariff of 1890, we bought chiefly Texas and California wools, and our money went into the pockets of American farmers, who in turn bought the products of our factories."

Big Fire Needed.

   From a sanitary point of view the great fire of Chicago was one of the best things that could have happened to her. An aggregation of frame cottages was by that means transformed into a solid, well built city comparatively fireproof.

   The report of the tenement house committee that has been investigating the homes of the very poor in New York city leads to the inevitable conclusion that the big town by the sea needs a tremendous, roaring, great fire even worse than she needs honest policemen, and that is saying much. The report is the reverse of appetizing, and its reading is not to be recommended to one who hopes to enjoy his dinner.

   Loathsome old tenements, soaked through and through with the dirt, disease, sin, misery and despair of generations, were brought to light through the newspapers. In many of the structures that held in their vile old walls dozens of families there was no kind of fire escape. But the roasting of a poor tenement house dweller or two of a night apparently makes no difference to the representatives of wealth and intelligence of the splendid, wretched city. In some cases a visitor found children sick of scarlet fever lying upon bundles of sweatshop clothing. Successful livestock breeders find it necessary to avoid crowding their flocks and herds too closely in stables. The animals will die and be a loss. So they must have comfortable quarters, with good food, light and air. But a human being is cheaper than a horse. For every one that dies there are three to take his place. The stables in which the New York poor live reek with the odors of decaying vegetable and animal matter, with the fumes of leaking sewers and gas pipes, with dirt, damp and mold. In one den lived 69 persons. Seventeen per cent of them died during the year 1893. The woman who rented this building sublet it to tenants and got from it a profit of over 33 per cent.

   The worst sinner of all is no other than Trinity Church corporation, with its wealth, greater than that of even any of our American millionaires. On ground owned by this corporation are gin mills, disorderly houses and some of the foulest, most rickety tenements in Christendom. Trinity gets around this fact by saying that the corporation leases the ground to individuals, who erect buildings at their own expense. But this pitiful excuse will not go down.

   On the whole, yes, civilization would be vitally aided by tremendous fires in certain sections of New York. Nothing else will do.

HOMER DEPARTMENT.

Gleanings of News From Our Twin Village.

   Many attacks of the grip among the citizens of the village are reported by the doctors.

   Messrs. E. D. Seward and Ray Wildey have leased the Signor shops on North Fulton-st. and have opened a blacksmith and repair shop there. Mr. Seward will have charge of the blacksmith shop and do the iron work, while Mr. Wildey will do the woodwork. The new firm already has an order for one cutter and they are prepared to do all kinds of work in their line.

   Mr. H. Bower of Elm-ave. slipped on the ice in front of the postoffice last evening and fell upon the pavement. He received a severe shock from the fall and a slight scalp wound on the head which it is thought will not prove serious.

   The Homer council, I. O. O. F., will meet this evening in their lodge rooms in the First National bank building at 8 o'clock.

   The first appearance of the trolley car was hailed with suppressed enthusiasm by the citizens of the village yesterday noon when the electric stranger made its initial trip through the main thoroughfare of the town. Groups of men and boys were seen on the streets awaiting or watching the passing of the trolley. The car made regular trips at half hour intervals and carried many passengers some of whom made the trip to inspect the cars and compare them with the rolling stock of other lines, while many of the excursionists had never seen or rode in a trolley car before it was an eventful day for Homer and one in which a large majority of the citizens were very proud. The cars were the subject of none but favorable comments by the public and the easy manner with which they move was noticed by all.

BREVITIES.

   —"Zarah's Sacrifice" to-night [at the Opera House] for the benefit of the hospital.

   —Gleason & Lane's hardware store was to-day connected with the telephone exchange.

   —The clerks at G. F. Brown's Main-at. drug store are busy taking the annual inventory.

   —Invitations are out for a large party to be given by Mr. and Mrs. T. H. Wickwire on Friday evening, Feb. 8.

   —The fourth annual public exercises of the Corlonor fraternity will be held at Normal hall this evening at 8 o'clock.

   —Thursday, Jan. 31, is the day observed throughout the United States as the annual day of prayer for colleges.

   —Wickwire Brothers last night began running the weaving department of their wire mills all night, employing two sets of [hands].

   —The nineteenth annual public exercises of the Gamma Sigma fraternity will be held in Normal hall to-morrow evening at 8 o'clock.

   —The case of Michael Graney, charged with breaking windows in the Graham building on Port Watson-st, was called in police court yesterday afternoon, Graney did not appear to put in any defence and Police Justice Bull declared that the bill of damages was forfeited.

   —"Bob" Fitzsimmons arrived in Syracuse yesterday and was at once arraigned upon the indictment found by the grand jury charging him with manslaughter in the first degree in killing "Con" Riordan while boxing with him in that city. He pleaded not guilty and the trial of the case was set down for next Monday.

   —A chicken pie weighing l,000 pounds and containing eighty fowls was served at the Christmas dinner at the State hospital for the insane at Middletown, Conn. The dinner was served in the various diningrooms  throughout the  institution. The pie was the main feature of the dinner and was cut up in pieces for the 1,700 inmates.—Exchange.

   —Little knots of ladies are frequently seen talking earnestly upon the streets in these days and the passerby catches the words "space," "half columns," "double half," "advertising rates," etc. They are all members of the Ladies' Auxiliary of the Y. M. C. A. talking about the woman's paper to be issued from The STANDARD office Feb. 22.

   —A member of the editorial staff of the Syracuse Post called at The STANDARD office last Saturday. Speaking of the woman's paper to be issued from that office Feb. 1, he said that present indications point to the fact that the Syracuse ladies will clear at least $7,000 from their venture. They have received an offer from one man of $100 for twenty copies of the paper.

SLAIN BY SEMINOLES.

MASSACRE COMMEMORATED BY A MONUMENT AT WEST POINT.

Major Dade's Command of One Hundred and Ten Men Fought Against Great Odds to the Bitter End, and but Three Escaped—Ambushed Like Custer.

   "Dade and His Command" is the simple inscription on a handsome monument of Italian marble at West Point. Few of the visitors are familiar with the tragic story of these men—a story that caused almost as much of a sensation just 59 years ago as the similar slaughter of gallant Custer and his comrades on the Little Big Horn in 1876.

   In December, 1835, Osceola, the Seminole chief whose wife had been seized as a slave while on a visit to Fort King, Fla., was in a very threatening mood, and Major Francis L. Dade was sent to re-enforce the fort. Osceola had been imprisoned by General Thompson, the Indian agent at the fort, because he had the audacity to object to losing his wife, and after his release had been lying in wait for Thompson for months. His long vigil was rewarded Dec. 28, for on that day Osceola caught Thompson and four followers outside the fort and massacred them. This was the beginning of the second Seminole war that cost the United States 1,466 lives and $10,000,000.

   The same day Major Dade, at the head of two companies, the Second and Third artillery, comprising 110 men, was on his way to Fort King. The day was a beautiful one, and the men were in good spirits. They feared no danger. War had not begun in earnest with the Seminoles, and the scouts had reported that no Indians were near. After breakfast Major Dade rode in front of his men and told them to be of good heart; that the difficulties and dangers they had been encountering were over, and that as soon as they arrived at Fort King they should have a three days' rest and celebrate Christmas.

   The words had barely been uttered when a sheet of flame burst from the palmettos and the long grass about them, and the leaden rain from hundreds of rifles swept away half of the little command in an instant. Major Dade, Captain Fraser, second in command, and Lieutenant Mudge fell dead at the first fire of the ambushed Seminoles and fugitive slaves, some 800 or 900 in number. The sudden attack, coming as it did like a thunderbolt from a sunny sky, naturally threw the troops into disorder, but in three minutes they were fighting as steadily and coolly as veterans at target practice. They fell back about 200 yards under command of Captain Gardiner and Lieutenant Basinger and rallied around a six-pounder that was rumbling along at the rear of the column. A few well directed discharges from the cannon, and the Indians retreated temporarily.

   The little command was surrounded, however, and its members prepared to sell their lives as dearly as possible. Tiny hastily felled trees, forming a meager triangular breastwork, behind which they crouched in readiness to meet the second attack of the cruel foe. They had not long to wait. Soon from every quarter the Indians and negroes poured a destructive fire into the poorly protected garrison, which the brave soldiers returned as best they could. An eyewitness, Ransom Clarke, declared that they seemed as cool and self possessed as if they were in the. woods shooting game. At the end of hours of hard fighting Captain Gardiner succumbed to five or six wounds, and Lieutenant Basinger, the only officer then living, took command.

   "I am the only officer left, boys," he said grimly. "Let us do the best we can."

   For eight hours the unequal battle raged, the fire from the hastily constructed fort gradually growing weaker and weaker as one by one its gallant defenders were picked off by the Indian riflemen. At 2:30 o'clock a rifle ball through the thighs brought down the gallant Basinger, and he was afterward tomahawked by a negro.

   The firing was continued by the soldiers so long as a man was left who could load a musket. About the last to fire was Ransom Clarke, a private, who was one of the three survivors of the battle. Clarke was first wounded in the thigh about 1 o'clock. He fell outside the brestworks, but soon recovered sufficiently to crawl in again. A little later, while raising his musket to fire from behind the barricade, he received a second wound in the arm. He still continued to fire, but soon received two more wounds—one in the head and another in the back. Finally a ball from a negro's rifle at short range disabled him, and the Indians rushed into the breast works without opposition. Not a man was left who could fire a shot in defense. A party of negroes followed the Indians, stripping the dead, many of whom had already been scalped by the Seminoles. In some manner Clarke escaped being scalped, and the negroes, although they killed several other wounded men, spared his life, remarking that he would suffer more in slowly dying from his wounds than from being killed outright. After taking his boots they hurried away, evidently fearing that other troops would soon be upon them.

   Clarke lay still until darkness came, when he crawled over the bodies to see if all were dead. He found a private named DeCourcy who was still alive and not badly wounded, and the two soldiers started toward Fort Brooke, on Tampa bay, about 65 miles distant. DeCourcy was killed by an Indian, but Clarke reached Fort Brooke, where he found Privates Thomas and Sprague. The trio were all that remained of Major Dade's command. Nearly a month later the dead were buried on the battlefield by Captain R. A. Hitchcock, and the monument to "Dade and His Command" was erected at West Point in 1845.